really use one. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> for more information visit the author's website taylor branch.com. ..

>> on sunday we sit down with patricia -- [inaudible] author of "reclaiming fair use," and kenneth anderson. both authors are professors at american university where booktv recently visited as part of our college series. watch these programs and more all weekend long on booktv. for a complete schedule, visit booktv.org. >> from new york city, now, michelle rhee, former chancellor of the d.c. public school system, recounts her career and present her thoughts on education reform. this event is about 45 minutes. [applause] >> michelle, firstly, thank you very much for joining us. i know you've had a couple busy days from last evening, jon

stewart, cnn's piers morgan, and we're really delighted to have our old friends here from c-span filming this event so that many people from across the united states can benefit from a lot of what michelle has to say. so just to kick start it this evening, michelle, how did you come up with a fascinating and interesting book, "radical," and where does this interesting name come from? >> so i think the genesis of the name is an interesting one in that when i first got to d.c. it was the lowest performing and most dysfunctional school district in the entire nation, and that was a pretty widely-known truth. and, um, so i started doing things that i thought were of course for a school district in that kind of state. i, you know, started closing low performing schools, moving out ineffective employees, um, cutting the central office bloapted bureaucracy in half, and as i was taking all of these

steps and measures, people started saying, well, she's a firebrand, she's radical, she's so controversial. and i thought, really? [laughter] and, you know, after thinking about it for a while, finally i just said, you know what? it's bringing some common sense to a dysfunctional system makes me a radical, then i'm okay with that. so that's sort of embracing that concept was the sort of idea for the name of the book. >> brilliant. some people call you anti-teacher. however, there's many teachers out there that really like you. which is it, do you think? teachers love you or hate you, or is there any in between? >> i think it depends on the teacher that you're talking to. um, you know, i think the whole sort of notion that i am anti-teacher is an incredibly odd one to me, and i write about in this the book. i come from teachers. my grandfather was an educator, my grandmother was a kindergarten teacher, four of my

aunts, my sister-in-law, my best friend. i grew up around teachers and having an incredible respect for the difficult job ha they have of every day, and i'm still surrounded by teachers to this day. and i think that it is because i have such respect for teachers and hold them in such regard that i have a tremendous belief for what they can do. and the power that they have. and i refuse to believe what many folks these days say which is, well, you know, if kids are coming from difficult situations in poverty, there's nothing that schools can do. and i just roundly reject that notion. i believe that when children are in the classrooms of truly effective teachers, each despite -- even despite the fact they may face obstacle, those kids can achieve to the highest levels. so we should aspire to nothing short as a nation of making sure every kid is in the classroom of a highly effective teacher every

single dead. it's nothing different than we should want for our nation's kids. >> michelle, if the united states spends the most per capita per student, why is america's children ranked number 25 out of 30th in developed nations in math, 17th in science and 14th in reading? >> you know, when i, when i share those statistics with people, they cringe a little bit. when i share the fact that, you know, we're 25th in math, and some of the countries that are ahead of us are hungary and slovenia. and i think as americans we don't expect to be behind slovenia and hungary on any measure. when i started students first two years ago, someone showed me a scatter ored plot of all the developed nations in the country, and on one axis it was academic achievement levels of the students, and on the other axis was the amount of money that country spends per child on

their public education system. and we were in the quadrant that you don't want to be in which is spends a lot of money, has poor results. and the only other country that was in that quadrant with us was luxembourg. i have no idea what they're doing, but apparently not so good. [laughter] and i think the problem with this notion is that for decades now people have been sort of pushing this idea that what we need in order to fix the system is more money. of more money, more money, more money. but when i got to d.c. i knew firsthand that was not the case. we were spending more money per kid in d.c. than almost any other jurisdiction, and yet our results were at the absolute bottom. newark, new jersey, they were spending $22,000 a kid and yet kids operating on proficiency are in the single digits. so the idea that we can throw more money into a broken system and expect a different result is

just a pallty one. i think what we've got to do is have a great deal of transparency around where our dollars are going so that we can stop spending money on things that have absolutely no impact on kids. when i was in d.c., with -- we had a budget for the schools of $1 billion a year. and of that $1 billion, 403 million of it went into the schools. which means that the majority of the money was going into this bureaucracy, this bloated bureaucracy. and that's not where you're going to have an impact. money is going to have an impact when it's in the schools and in the classrooms and not when it's being sucked up by the school district itself. so until we bring some light to that, until we shine a light on what kind of return on investment are we getting for different programs and expenditures, i think we're going to continue to live in this world where we're spending more money per kid, but we're just knot getting the results.

>> -- not getting the results. >> in your book you talk about student vouchers, could you tell us how you came to the change in your thinking on this interesting topic? >> yeah. so this topic of vouchers gets people really, really riled up. you want to have a debate, you just bring up the word voucher, and people have very strong opinions. and, you know, i am a democrat. i have been my entire life, i have been since the second grade. i asked my dad what was the difference, and he said democrats care more about the people who have less, and republicans want to make more money. and i said, well, i'm a democrat then. and have been ever since. so when i got to d.c., you know, i had very clear views about what education reform should look like and what it shouldn't look like, and where i drew a bright line was around vouchers. the democratic party thinks they're bad because you're only helping a few kids, and all that

stuff. i bought into it. but when i arrive inside washington, we had a publicly-funded voucher program, and people -- it was about to be reauthorized, and people wanted me to weigh many on it. so they said, you know, well, you're the top education official, what do you think about the program? i pretty much knew what i thought, but i didn't want to jump to any conclusions, so i started to meet with people. families throughout the city. and the discussions that i had absolutely changed my mind. i was meeting with parents from throughout the city. mostly low income, single moms. and these moms had done everything that you would want a mother to do. so they first researched their neighborhood schools, figured out only 10% of the kids at that school were on grade level. then they would do the next best thing which is they would apply through the outer boundary lottery process that we had set up to try to get, win one of the

spots at one of the good schools on the other side of town, and inevitably they would lose because there were thousands of people applying and only a handful of spots available. and then these moms would come to me and say, okay, now what am i supposed to do? and when i was looking eye to eye with these mothers, and i knew i could not offer them a spot at a high performing school that i thought was good enough for my own two kids, i said who am i to stop this lady from taking a $7500 voucher and potentially getting into a catholic school that was not willing to say no? i i went for the voucher or program. people went crazy, what are you doing? you're going against the party. i would always say, look, my job is not to protect and preserve a district that has been doing a disservice to children. my job is to insure that every kid in the city gets a great

education. i am agnostic as to the mechanism. as long as kids are getting a great education, i don't care. and so i tried to bring a lot of my democratic friends along with me on this issue. and i was talking to a friend of mine who's a public schoolteacher the other day, and, you know, i said -- i laid the whole argument out. she looks at me and she goes, yeah, no. [laughter] not buying it. i said did you watch the movie "waiting for superman"? she said, yes, one of my best friends was in it. i said tumor the scene with -- do you remember the scene with little bianca where she's crying and she can't go to school because her mom had fallen behind on the tuition program? she said, i wanted to write the check myself. i said, right, honey. that would be a voucher. [laughter] and this is the problem i think

people have. you know, they see things like voucher, oh, that's a republican thing or this is a democratic thing 1k3-6789 if we stop thed looking at things in terms of partisan politics and started making public policy based on the decisions that we would make for our own kids, then i think we would neither a democratic or republican agenda, but a students-first agenda, and i think that would put our country on a wildly different trajectory moving forward. >> you put a lot of emphasis on the importance of teachers improving students' performance, but how do you answer critics that say there's a lot of factors which teachers have no control over such as kids' home life, poverty level, etc. >> look, they are absolutely right. we have kids who come to school every day facing enormous challenges. nobody put them to bed the night before at a decent hour, nobody fed them breakfast before they came to school, maybe the electricity got turned off in their house, and they couldn't do their homework.

when you are facing these challenges, does it make it harder to learn and, therefore, does it make it harder the teach those kids? absolutely. 100%. but can it be an excuse for why kids aren't achieving? no way. and this is, this is what i think is the thing ha we have to understand in this -- that we have to understand in this country right now. the u.s. ranks towards the bottom internationally on social mobility. which means if you are a child who is born into poverty in this country the likelihood that you will ever escape poverty is not good. that, in my mind, goes against every single ideal we hold as americans. that is not the way our country is supposed to work. this is the the greatest country in the world because be you work hard and do the right thing, you can live the american dream. but if you're a poor kid growing up in this america today, the likelihood that you go to a failing school is about 50% which means you're not going to get the skills and knowledge you

need to go on to get a college degree and, therefore, a high-paying job. that's criminal in my mind. so we can't allow poverty, in my mind, to be the determining factor of a kid chances in life outcomes. we just absolutely can't do it. >> what about the problem of teaching to tests? >> so this is a very good question, and i see both sides of it because as a mom last year when my daughter was in the fourth grade in about the middle of april she was coming home, and i was saying where's your homework many and she said we don't have homework anymore because the test is over. and i thought, oh, my gosh, what kind of message is this sending to the kids, to the parents, you know, who are sitting there asking their kids these questions? i mean, there's this overemphasis on the tests that i actually think is maddening for

parents. but on the other side of that, i talked to a participant in compton -- to a parent in compton not too long ago who was extraordinarily frustrated because she had a little girl, daughter, who all through elementary school had gotten straight as. and she was excited because she applied for her daughter to go to the magnet middle school. and was told later on that her daughter didn't qualify to enter into the lottery because she didn't have the academic skills that she needed. and the mom said what are you talking about? she got all as from kindergarten to fifth grade. they said grades are one thing, but she took the test, and she actually doesn't know reading comprehension, we can show you all the data. and this mom felt is so betrayed, you know? she trusted the system, and she thought when her kids was coming home with good grades, that that meant something. she said why wasn't anyone telling me and showing me the data that compared her to her

peers and showed she wouldn't compete? we also have to have some accountability. and so the challenge i think we face as a nation right now is how can we strike the right balance where we have accountability, we know what kids are able to do, and we can doha in a standardized, consistent way, and there's not such an emphasis on the test that people think that's the end all, be all. >> in the film "waiting for superman," you offer the teachers' union more money for teachers that are excelling, actually, substantially more money, and the union rejects it. why? >> that's what i was asking. [laughter] but in the movie, if you saw the incredulous look on my face, are you kidding me? this was the situation. when the movie was being filmed, we had presented a plan to the union where we said we want to give highly effective teachers the opportunity to make, basically, double the amount of

money that they were in the old system if they are willing to give up, you know, tenure and seniority protections, etc. but it's a choice. they don't have to. if teachers want to stay in the old system, they can. if they go in the new system, they give ten your up, but they -- tenure up, but they will make a lot money. let your teachers choose the union said no. i couldn't believe it. the guy who was the president of the teachers' union at the time now has had -- he's come to jesus, and now he's an education reform orer. and what he tells me now is do you know why i didn't put that to a votesome -- vote? because i didn't want that policy in place. and i was getting that policy -- all these e-mails from teachers saying put it to a vote. eventually, we actually got the contract in place. and this was the interesting thing about it. people or were skeptical about

what with kind of impact it was going to have if you paid some teachers more money based on results, etc. and there was a study that just came out a few weeks ago that studied several urban districts across the country. and what it showed was that most of these districts, they retained their highly effective teachers and their ineffective teachers at exactly the same rate. there was no differentiation whatsoever. and the one outlier to the study was washington d.c. where they kept about 38% of their -- 38% of -- 38% of their -- 88% of their highly effect e teachers. and i said that's what we are doing is starting to work because the great teachers are feeling more valued, and they know that they're being recognized and rewarded for their work, and it makes them want to stay. >> michelle, america's most precious capital is its children, so why doesn't merit evaluation and merit pay apply

to teachers, and why aren't poorly performing teachers removed, in your opinion? >> you know, it's a tough thing to understand why this goes on. because it defies all common sense. >> but you've held all types of jobs. most people in the audience have held all types of jobs. merit evaluation is the way of life whichever way you cut it. and especially in something so important, dealing with children, why is there so much resistance to merit evaluation? >> well, i can tell you from having run a school destruct for three and a half years that much of the education community is aler or jibbing to the idea of -- allergic to the idea of accountability. people want to say, well, you can't hold us accountable for this reason, for that reason, because of the other reason. and i think it's extraordinarily problematic. i don't know exactly why, but let me tell you how i think i've

got to change -- we've got to change this. i now live about halftime in california which is one of the most difficult states in terms of getting things done in terms of education reform. so there was an episode that happened in a public school in l.a. where they found this teacher who was, basically, a sexual predator, and they showed that he was sort of abusing the kids in his class. so the school district tried the fire him, and they couldn't. because he had ten your. and -- ten your. and it was just this absolute travesty. and, you know, the school district -- the parents were up in arms. so a legislator from that area introduced a bill to the california legislature that would simply make it easier to fire sexual predators. not ineffective teachers, sexual predators. that's pretty low-hanging fruit. you'd think that a bill like that could get passed.

it didn't even make it out of the education committee. [laughter] didn't even make it out of committee and make it to a vote of the legislature. that is how powerful the status quo is in making sure that no laws get passed. and when you think about it, if you went out on the street today and asked people what they thought about it, i guarantee you virtually everybody would say of course we should pass a law like that. but, you know what? the people in that committee, nobody knew that. there was no public light really hope is on that. and so -- shone on that. so those lawmakers are not going to be held accountable for those decisions or that are to the detriment of children. the only way this is going to change is if we as citizens start to hold our elected officials accountable for the kinds of laws and policies that were put in place, and we send a message to them that if you're going to vote with adult interests instead of kid interests, then we are not going to vote for you next time

around. [applause] >> that means you'll have to figure out who's your school board members, who's your legislators. >> why do most teachers see the same raise every year? isn't it demotivating for the excellent teachers, and doesn't it show poor-performing teachers that they don't have to improve their own performance or their quality regardless? they're going to get the same 2% raise every year regardless of what they do to the great teachers that are really hard working and standing out? >> so, again, you see why i was shocked when i was trying to make common sense changes, and it got such pushback. because you have some employees that are doing really well, you should be able to compensate those employees more. and that's just not how the education system works. so in education where we have something called step-in lanes. so you get paid according to what kind of degree you have and

how long you've been in the profession. and it literally drives effective, highly-effective teachers nuts when they see somebody down the hall who comes in when the kids come in and leaves when the kids leave. meanwhile, they're coming in two hours early and staying three hours later, and they're producing results, and yet they get paid less than that person does pause that person's been here longer. it's just not the kind of environment high achievers want to go into and stay in. it doesn't make teachers feel valued at all. you know, i got in a little bit of trouble the other night because i was giving a speech in california, and i was lamenting the fact that highly-effective teachers don't get paid enough. i said, think about this. i said, basketball players -- now, my husband is a former nba player, and so this is why i got in trouble at home. i said basketball players, there are basketball players that get paid $12 million a year for dribbling a ball around. [laughter]

but what value are they adding to society? meanwhile, i think we should pay $12 million to our most highly effective teachers in this nation, because they are actually determining the future of our nation. but we have this skewed culture where we don't actually respect and honor teachers for the incredible work that they do. um, and we certainly don't pay them what they're worth. >> in australia they have 200 days of public school. in china and india, it's 220 days of public school instruction. in the united states, why do you think in the united states it's only 180 days? which is drastically, if you take between china and india, it's 40 less days a year, and if you multiply that from -- >> [inaudible] >> through 12th grade and stuff, it's a big advantage. >> so it's no wonder they're kicking our butts. i mean, it really isn't. you know, people all the time talk about, well, what do we

need in order to fix education in and in my opinion you have to put every single resource to bear to solve this problem. and the resource that people underestimate is the resource of time. and i think that if you look at the schools in this country that do the best whether they be traditional public schools, charter schools, etc., they are in school more time. they have their kids working before school, after school, on weekends, etc. , and we have 180-day calendar because we're still living off the agrarian calendar. i mean, literally, it's interesting, somebody said on a talk show the orr day or maybe a blog they said, well, you know, michelle rhee is wrong, the u.s. is not doing worse than what it was doing before. she's sort of challenge f exaggerating the problem. and that person is actually right when you look at the fact that the academic achievement levels of our kids in america in the 1960s and '70s is pretty

much on par with where we are today. so the it's true that from that vantage point we have not gotten worse. the problem is that there are countries that are leapfrogging ahead of us. countries like latvia and liechtenstein? i'm not kidding you. latvia and liechtenstein are both growing academically at two to three times the rate of american kids. so if we're staying the same because we're running a school system exactly the same way we were 100 years ago based on the agrarian calendar and other countries have figured out if we want to get ahead, we're going to have to educate our kids and put more time in, then we can remain the same, but we're going to fall behind in terms of kind of the global positioning. >> if the average american receives two-and-a-half weeks of vacation a year, why do public schoolteachers in general

receive over three and a half months a year, and do you think that will ever change compared to what we're talking about other country, the amount of length the school year is and more focused on students? >> i think it's only going to change if we make the commitment as a country to addressing this issue and doing something about it. as long as the school calendar is something that is negotiated in a collective bargaining agreement, we're in trouble. because this, in my mind, we should, we should set out as a country our kids need to be in school x number of days a year. right now pause it's collectively bargained with, oftentimeses the only things they can bargain away is the length of the school year which is a debt concern detriment to children. you have of some kids who have had to go to a four-day school

week because they didn't have enough money to sort of negotiate -- that is where we have to draw the line, folks. i mean, i'm actually for collective bargaining. i'm, you know, i'm all in favor of unions, etc. , and around things like salaries and benefits, they should absolutely be able to bargain those things at table. but when it comes to how long kids should be in school, that, in my mind, should not be a bargaining chip. >> michelle, it definitely feels like there's more -- [inaudible] in your incredible story. this book has received incd bl reviews. tell us where students first is going and what's next for the organization. because what you've done in two years has been impressive according to many, many critics. >> thank you. so i started students first two years ago when i left d.c. with the idea that if you looked at what was happening in the public education over the last two to three decades, you would see that it was largely driven by

special interest groups whether it's textbook manufacturers, teachers' unions, testing companies. these organizations have tremendous resources, and they use those resources to put a lot of influence on the political process to get the policies and the regulations in place that benefit them. and i actually don't have any problem with that. that's the american way, that's democracy. we should be able to do that. the problem is not the fact that those organizations exist or are doing those things. the problem at that point was that we didn't have an organized national interest group with the same heft as the teachers' union that was advocating on behalf of kids. and because the kids weren't being represented at the table, you had a skewed landscape, an environment that was tilted towards all of these interests and away from kids. so i thought we have to start a national movement of everyday people who care about education, who know what kinds of laws and policies we have to put in place and who are willing to fight for it and hold public officials

accountable. they have finish it has to be an organization that has political muscle. so i started students first. we have two million members across the country right now. we have over 150,000 here in new york, almost 300,000 in california. and these are very active people. they have been surgerying for -- searching for a venue through which they can fight for kids. they found it through us. we've passed over 115 laws in the 17 states that we're woking with over -- working with over the last two years. we have gotten involved in electoral politics. we supported over a hundred politicians in last year's elections, and we had a win rate of about 75%. so we are beginning to level the playing field on behalf of kids, and i'd say that we still have a long way to go. >> and where does most of the funding come from? >> you know, it comes from a variety of sources, people who are passionate about this. what i'm very proud of is the fact that we have a lot of our members, our two million members

who donate to the cause. in fact, i think our average donation is about $84. so these are everyday people, parents, teachers, you know, grandparents, business owners who know that the future of this country is going to be based on whether we can fix the public education system for kids today. >> we're going to take a couple of audience questions before we move over to the book signing. i ask you to speak loudly. i'm going to repeat the question because it's being formed for television. the lady here first. >> [inaudible] makes over $500,000 a year. private school but everybody thinks it's the best district in the nation. i think they fall very short. they teach the high and the low, and the middle kind of gets lost in between. and i'm also -- [inaudible] mindset because i was in aher corp., i worked in the department of ed in georgia implementing the federal program of --

[inaudible] so i was helping teachers actually take that active role in the classroom to serve students. and i find that in the bureaucracy -- [inaudible] i put my kid in private school, but i can afford to do that, and that's great. >> yeah. >> your mindset is, it suggestion burns me in in the sense that i'm such an advocate. i want to be a part of it. how do everyday people, how do we make that stand when you're working against money? >> yeah. >> [inaudible] >> yeah. yeah. so that is part of the reason why i wrote "radical." partially because i wanted to sort of tell my story and explain to people why i've come to have the views that i do, part to sort of get teachers and educators to understand that, but partially for the average mom out there who's frustrated with what she sees and who wants to do something about it and doesn't know how. what i would say is this, take

right here in new york city. it doesn't matter where you send your kid to school, it doesn't matter whether it's the highest performing, lowest performing, you have the to make the decision that you think is in the best interest of your kid. you can't let politics or guilt or anything else make you send your kid to one school or another. let's take new york city, for example. most of you probably know this if you keep up with the news, but the city recently lost $300 million in state and federal aid because the union basically refused to implement a rigorous teacher evaluation system. what you were saying before. everybody has to be evaluated. everybody has to be held accountable. this is the way of the world. but the fact that the union, you know, refused to do this and, mike bloomberg who i think very rightfully stood his ground and said no because what the union

wanted was for the evaluation period -- models to just be in place for two years, and then it would sunset after two years. two years, which happened to be the market in which an ineffective teacher would be removed from the market after two years, but then we revert back to the old system, and the mayor said, no, what's the point of doing that? right? now, where's the public outcry for that where are the people that are picketing out in the street saying you cannot deny our kids $300 million because you refuse to be held accountable and have a reasonable evaluation system in place. and so that, this is where students first is organizing people like you, and it doesn't matter where you send your kid to school. you've got to get involved in that process. because until people see -- the legislators in albany, the governor, they can solve these problems. they just have to hear from people like you that you're going to make your decisions on whether you contribute to their next campaign or vote for them

based on the standses that they're taking now. -- stances that their taking now. they're not hearing enough from people like you. >> the gentleman all the way in the back with the blue shirt. >> ye. yes. even if all these reforms were put in place, what's the make the argument that we live in a culture where children go home to homes where they watch, the kids, five hours of tv a day, come pulseoffly akicked -- compulsively addicted to facebook, texting, the internet, hollywood which is filled with, shall we say, impure things. and generally a mass media in terms of television and radio and pop culture obsessed with sports where the very culture in our country is hostile to the needs of education? and i raise the question, for

the best meaning teachers, what does it do in that the whole culture has to be completely transform inside and maybe that's a huge part of the problem, and i'd like to hear your reactions to these things which are beyond all these reports you're talking about. >> so i'm an educator, so i don't know how to so all of the social ills out there. [laughter] and i can tell you that the kids are not the only ones that are spending too much time on facebook and texting, because i know a lot of corporate ceos that are spending too much time on their iphones as well. um, there was a study that came out a number of months ago that was done by economists at harvard. and what they showed is that -- and they studied over two million kids over a 20-year period be. and what they found is that if a child had a highly effective teacherrer, just one in their 13-year schooling experience, theirenning potential was higher, their likelihood that they graduated from college --

or high school, went on to college was greater, and the likelyhood that they would avoid a teenage pregnancy was higher. so i get that there are all kinds of problems out there. we should try to solve a lot of those problems. but we also cannot forget that what happens in school matters a lot. and, you know, if what we are concerned about is poverty, because a lot of people say, well, kids in poverty, you know, they face these challenges, and these are real challenges, don't get me wrong. but if we want to fix that problem, the best way for somebody to break the cycle of generational poverty is to get a high quality education. so we have to embrace the fact that education plays a very significant role in what the culture is going to look like in the long term. if we are producing kids that do not have the skills and knowledge necessary to get a well-paying job, right?

and nowadays employers, 50% of employers say that today cannot find people in their applicant pool who have the skills that they need to fill mission-critical jobs. think about that. with this kind of up employment rate in this country, for half of the 'em pois to say they have of jobs and they just can't fill them because our education system is not producing people who have those skills, we are on a very, very difficult course for the future. that education can play a very large part if fixing. in fixing. >> yes. michelle, thank you so much, by the way, for coming. i'm really intrigued by everything you've had to say. my question has to do with the structural change that we're currently face anything this country where it used to be possible for someone with a high school education to go to work in a factory or some similar job, auto plant, whatever, make, perhaps, 80, $90,000 a year and have a solid middle class live

live -- life for their family. those jobs are gone now, and for people -- [inaudible] to be able to make a similar salary in inflation-adjusted dollars -- [inaudible] is so much higher. >> that's right. >> and no one is really, really talking seriously or at least not too many people are speaking publicly about the structural problem. and when you have -- [inaudible] are fighting about whether creationism -- b. [inaudible] so with this tremendous structural change -- [inaudible] you know, how do you see, what do you see as the most effective way to address it? >> well, we have to bring reason into how public schools operate. you know, it is astonishing how many conversations i am in in public forums like this where people say to me, well, you

know, you seem to have, you know, you want all kids to go to college, but not all kids are cut out for higherrer education. and i say, excuse me? because the bottom line is if you look at the data, it is very clear that the vast majority of the jobs 10, 15, 20 years from now are going to require some level of higher education. so if you're saying that some kids are not cut out for that, you're basically saying that they're not going to be able to find a decently-paying job that will put them solidly in the middle class. what does that mean for their futures? you know, when i was in d.c., i remember going into a school, and they were doing, they had a program what we called, what used to be called vocational education, and now it's called the pc term is career and technical education. and i walk in, and the kids are doing shoe repair. and i said, really? shoe repair? are we thinking that we are

actually preparing kids for a profession by teaching them shoe repair? we have to be thinking about things in terms of what are the jobs that are going to be available 15, 20 years from now? we have to be looking at things like clean tech and green tech and, you know, that sort of thing. and then our career and technical education should be geared towards those skills and those professions. so even what we think of as vocational career tech, you know, what can we do to build the skills of kids that it could potentially go straight into a profession after high school? it's a wildly different set of skills and fields that we were looking at 20 years ago, and we have not made that shift yet. >> the gentleman that's been waiting patiently right on the end. yeah. >> so you managed to convince your fans to accept the notion that 50% vouchers is a great idea. >> no. not 50% vouchers. >> well, $7500 sounds around

50%, i'm just estimating. >> oh, you mean in terms of the amount of the voucher or? >> correct. 50% of the per capita district spending -- >> it depends on the district. but go ahead with your question. >> sure. this requires that schools the parent's going to send a kid to to be at least twice as efficient or at least that much, and this argument that the unions throw out in order to try to have of a trump card, what about special needs kids? well, here is the simple answer: each special needs kid counts as two kids. >> uh-huh. >> so when you figure out the per capita spending, you just, you just make your calculation in that manner. and they have to predefine who's special needs so that special needs raise their hand, they get a double voucher. >> yeah. >> so this calling the teachers' union belove. and, you know, when the federal government want all the states to adopt 55 speed limit, they

said you're not getting any highway money unless you do. well, you know, the congress can do that with federal education money as well. if you don't fully voucherrize the bottom quintile of districts in this manner, you're not going to get any federal education money if you don't make those requirements all the way down the chain to the municipality. >> so let me first say this, um, there are lots of people out there who believe that, you know, let's have universal vouchers, i actually don't agree with that. i am for choice not for choice sake, but only when choice results in better outcomes and opportunities for kids. and so the voucher programs that we support at students first are programs that are geared towards low income kids who would otherwise be trapped in failing schools. i actually do think to your point it can be worked out in terms of, you know, how much money the voucher should be to sort of be fair. what i find curious is the

absolute aversion that people have to the concept of vouchers in public education. and there's two reasons why. one is because if you don't believe in public dollars going to private institutions and companies, etc., then you don't believe in pell grants, right? because that's the same thing. when kids get pell grants, federal government dollars they can go to harvard, yale or wherever they want, private institutions, with those grants. you don't believe in food stamps that can be used and redeemed at, you know, any store that you go to in your neighborhood. medicare can also be used at, you know, not just public hospitals. so the idea that we just can't do that in public education, i think, is an odd thing. the second thing i'd say is that people often make the argument when it comes to vouchers, they say, well, we shouldn't take the money out of the system. of we should take that money and invest in the failing schools to make them better.